Quick question: I am signed up for the arduino class (yay) and it says that I should get my own arduino board. Where should I be getting this? Anyone know which board they want? The one on amazon has a review that says it is not the right board and I want to make sure I get the right thing. Perhaps I am overthinking it, but I wanted to make sure.

I use the Arduino Uno in class. You can get one at most Radio Shack stores in town, or from Micro Center, or from any number of web sources. The current version is the Uno R3, but it doesn't matter if you happen to get an R1 -- the differences are minor. Some students have brought the Arduino Mega 2560, which is fine too.

The ones not to get:

Any of the little ones (Nano, Fio). They're hard to work with.

Arduino Ethernet. It needs a special cable to connect to the computer.